Cesar Brod, the brazilian Miguel de Icaza
His company, Brod Tecnologia, pays services nowadays to Microsoft. Normally I wouldnt have anything against partnerships and deals, not even those that are done with companies like Microsoft. The only problem is that these deals sometimes seems to change radically the opinions of the people involved with M$. Very ($$$$$)weird($$$$$)….
Like many already know, some weeks ago happened the final meeting of ABNT to talk Brazil’s vote about document standarts ODF and OOXML. I wont say much, because there are a lot of information and opinions about it in lots of blogs and sites. In Avi Alkalay’s (from IBM Brazil) blog, you can find informations and impressions about the meeting that happened in ABNT.
Lots of companies where in the meeting. The YES came from Micro$oft, Unesp (thats a shame! A public college! Shame on you Unesp!), SUCESU-SP, Microsoft Partners Association, some regional companies and some smaller companies (all companies that share a bed with Steve Ballmer). The NO came from companies and Government Institutions like MCT, ITI, MP, Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica, Correios, Serpro, Celepar etc and companies like BrOffice.org, Rede Livre, ODF Alliance and companies like Sun, Red Hat, 4Linux, IBM, Metrô de São Paulo, Google and some others.
One thing that lots of people thought weird was Cesar Brod’s YES with comments. Lot of people tried to understand his vote reading two articles that he published on the site Dicas-l. In the first article, published last month, he talks about standarts doing comparation with VHS and Betamax.
In the second article, published the same day that I posted the original version (in portuguese) of this article, he tries to explain why he voted for OOXML.
If you allow me, I’ll comment some lines of his two articles:
“I’m concerned about the future… I know I wont resist and I’ll end up buying a VHS or a Betamax, praying that most people comes up with the same decision that I had. But, what if some crazy guy creates something that can record and play audio and video at the same time? Will this crazy guy care about my tape collection, my LPs, and create something that not only play the “new one”, but also the “old ones”? I doubt! A proof of this are recorders and tape players. Do anyone of them plays the old roll tapes that we used some years ago?”
Ok, ok, my dear! So microwaves shouldn’t be made… Just figure it out! What will poor housewifes do with all the pans they have in their kitchen? Metal in the microwave = shit! OMG!!!!! Pans are doomed!!!! Ops… We’re in 2007 and we have microwaves at such a long time. Weird, there is also a stove and a lot of pans in my kitchen. Some days ago I even made my delicious GNU/Macarrão for my girlfriend 
“I still bet that, if in the future, someone care about creating standarts that respects compatibility with all that have already been made before, this guy will be called crazy or something else! But, what if all “this that was created before” are only informations, documents that are part of an entire enterprise information? Millions and millions of texts and spreadsheets!”
Microsoft never gave a damn about respecting compatibility with other softwares like OpenOffice. Do you prefer to be stuck in old documents than accepting a change to a more open and clear new standart? Companies wont lose their informations just because of a change in the standarts. A new format can be adopted, but this doesn’t means that older formats and their softwares will be extinguished from Earth. I’ll make an analogy like the one you used in your examples: I have DVD’s but I also watch some VHS. I also listen to LPs, even though I have CDs. I only have more options now
“What a waste of time thinking about it. Its so easy to throw things away! I dont know, I think that when I have more then 40 years I’ll still want to listen to my old LPs…”
Just like I said before, I didnt have to throw my tapes away. I also keep my LPs. I still have all of them: Queen, Alice Cooper, Extreme, Judas Priest, Faith No More, Alan Parson’s Project and a lot more that I listen when I want
“There are over 40 billion documents saved in Microsoft’s binary format. These documents, opened with new Office versions and saved in OpenXML, becomes more accessible by lots of applications that now uses texts and sheets and can be the base for search systems for collective knowledge, business intelligence, among a lot more, that can even be developed like Free Software and Open Source.”
This is sad, dont you think? It seems that whenever another software’s compatibility becomes closer to these formats, Micro$oft releases a new version with some modifications in these documents. The worst of it all is the usually, the final user, ends up thinking that this is OpenOffice’s blame or that there is a problem in Linux and it all finishes with the end user saying: “Let’s call the computer guy and he will install Windows, World and Excel for less than 25 dollars!”. M$ like’s it. Microsoft never had any interest in opening their documents. Just when ODF was created that Microsoft came with this OOXML, a bad standart (if we can call it a standart ¬¬) with a lot of binary parts.
I don’t think I need to do more comments about it. A lot of people in the comunity already know about it and a lot of articles around the web talks about this subject. I think that my deception with Cesar Brod’s vote is not a surprise, just like I also know that a lot of other people also didn’t like his vote. This is sad… Weren’t Novell, Xandros, Linspire and Miguel de Icaza enough? Maybe these people only use Free Software and the community to make money, something that I really despise! But who am I to criticize people’s financial, ideological, political and technological preferencies…? What can I say if some guys think that Bill and Ballmer’s dollars are greener?
It was sad to me to write this article. All I can say is that next time I hear or read the name César Brod I will remember the title of this post: “César Brod, the brazilian Miguel de Icaza!”
(Sorry about my bad english! I tried to do a free translation of my own article and some parts of Cesar Brod’s article that are here! If there’s something you can’t understand, just ask me and I’ll try to translate it better my original article (in portuguese) is here!)
